Santo Tomás de las Ollas
The Church of Santo Tomás de las Ollas is located in the suburb of the same name of Ponferrada in the province of León in the autonomous Spanish region of Castile and León . The church is dated to the 10th century and is attributed to Mozarabic architecture. In 1931 the church was declared a Monumento Nacional , since 1985 Bien de Interés Cultural .
history
The original name of the place Santo Tomás de las Ollas was Entrambasaguas and refers to its location at the confluence of the Boeza and Sil rivers . Its later name, Santo Tomás de las Ollas, indicates the pottery that used to be practiced here. Ollas means pots. There are no documents about the establishment of the church. The use of quarry stone as building material, the horseshoe arches of the apse and other similarities with pre-Romanesque churches in the area such as the neighboring former monastery church of Santiago de Peñalba suggest that the church of Santo Tomás de las Ollas belongs to the Mozarabic architecture of the 10th century. In the Romanesque period the church was changed and the south portal renewed. In 1311 the Bishop of Astorga donated the church to the monastery of San Pedro de Montes, about 30 km away . At the end of the 17th century the height of the nave was shortened and a square chapel was built in the north . In the 18th century the bell tower ( espadaña ) was added and in the 19th century the sacristy was added to the apse .
architecture
The building is made of small, irregular rubble stones. Larger stone blocks were only used at the corners. The plan of the church is a rectangle, to which the apse adjoins in the east. It has an oval shape on the inside, and its outer walls form a square. It has three windows, of which the eastern and northern are smaller and still original. The entrance portal to the church is on the south side. It was redesigned in the Romanesque period and provided with two simple round arches archivolten . Another portal from the Romanesque period was on the west facade. All that remains of him is a round arch built into the wall. The west portal was bricked up in the 19th century as a result of the desamortización , when the adjacent property fell into private ownership and was no longer open to the public.
inner space
The single nave nave has an Artesonado ceiling from the late 17th century. A double horseshoe arch on pilasters with simple, grooved spars forms the access to the apse. In relation to the nave, it is unusually large with a diameter of six meters. A blind arcade with nine horseshoe arches runs along its inner wall . These are slightly bent in the middle, creating the transition from the oval floor plan to the irregular octagon of the dome . A grooved combat cornice forms the end of the wall . The concrete dome's cloister vault rises above it . In the interior, pillars and vaulted stones are made from granite blocks .
literature
- Achim Arbeiter , Sabine Noack-Haley: Christian monuments of the early Middle Ages from the 8th to the 11th century. Mainz 1999, ISBN 3-8053-2312-3 , pp. 290-292.
- Jaime Cobreros: Guía del Prerrománico en España. Madrid 2006, ISBN 84-9776-215-0 , p. 149.
- Javier Sainz Saiz: El Arte Prerrománico en Castilla y León. Ediciones Lancia, León 2006, ISBN 84-8177-029-9 , pp. 44-46.
Web links
Coordinates: 42 ° 33 ′ N , 6 ° 35 ′ W